5.8 KiB
| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Caucasian race | 3/4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T09:17:56.351278+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Subraces === The postulated subraces vary depending on the author, including but not limited to Mediterranean, Atlantid, Nordic, East Baltic, Alpine, Dinaric, Turanid, Armenoid, Iranid, Indid, Arabid, and Hamitic. Some authors also proposed a Pamirid race (or Pamir-Fergana race) in Central Asia, named after the Pamir range and the Fergana valley. H.G. Wells argued that across Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, a Caucasian physical stock existed. He divided this racial element into two main groups: a shorter and darker Mediterranean or Iberian race and a taller and lighter Nordic race. Wells asserted that Semitic and Hamitic populations were mainly of Mediterranean type, and Aryan populations were originally of Nordic type. He regarded the Basques as descendants of early Mediterranean peoples, who inhabited western Europe before the arrival of Aryan Celts from the direction of central Europe. The "Northcaucasian race" is a sub-race proposed by Carleton S. Coon (1930). It comprises the native populations of the North Caucasus, the Balkars, Karachays and Vainakh (Chechens and Ingushs). An introduction to anthropology, published in 1953, gives a more complex classification scheme:
"Archaic Caucasoid Races": Ainu people in Japan, Australoid race, Dravidian peoples, and Vedda "Primary Caucasoid Races": Alpine race, Armenoid race, Mediterranean race, and Nordic race "Secondary or Derived Caucasoid Races": Dinaric race, East Baltic race, and Polynesian race
== Usage in the United States and Australia ==
Besides its use in anthropology and related fields, the term "Caucasian" has often been used in the United States in a different, social context to describe a group commonly called "white people". "White" also appears as a self-reporting entry in the U.S. Census. Naturalization as a United States citizen was restricted to "free white persons" by the Naturalization Act of 1790, and later extended to other resident populations by the Naturalization Act of 1870, Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 and Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. The Supreme Court in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) decided that Asian Indians were ineligible for citizenship because, though deemed "Caucasian" anthropologically, they were not white like European descendants since most laypeople did not consider them to be "white" people. This represented a change from the Supreme Court's earlier opinion in Ozawa v. United States, in which it had expressly approved of two lower court cases holding "high caste Hindus" to be "free white persons" within the meaning of the naturalization act. Government lawyers later recognized that the Supreme Court had "withdrawn" this approval in Thind. In 1946, the U.S. Congress passed a new law establishing a small immigration quota for Indians, which also permitted them to become citizens. Major changes to immigration law, however, only later came in 1965, when many earlier racial restrictions on immigration were lifted. This resulted in confusion about whether American Hispanics are included as "white", as the term Hispanic originally applied to Spanish heritage but has since expanded to include all people with origins in Spanish speaking countries. In other countries, the term Hispanic is rarely used. The United States National Library of Medicine often used the term "Caucasian" as a race in the past. However, it later discontinued such usage in favor of the more narrow geographical term European, which traditionally only applied to a subset of Caucasoids. In Australia, the federal and state police forces continue to use the descriptor Caucasian, along with Aboriginal, Asian, and other as of March 2025.
== See also == Anthropometry Leucism Race (human categorization) Race and ethnicity in the United States Census Race and genetics
== Notes ==
== References ==
=== Bibliography === Camberg, Kim (December 13, 2005). "Long-term tensions behind Sydney riots". BBC News. Retrieved March 3, 2007. Figal, Sara Eigen (April 15, 2010). Heredity, Race, and the Birth of the Modern. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-89161-9. Leroi, Armand Marie (March 14, 2005). "A Family Tree in Every Gene". The New York Times. p. A23. Lewontin, Richard (2005). "Confusions About Human Races". Race and Genomics, Social Sciences Research Council. Archived from the original on May 4, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2006. Painter, Nell Irvin (November 7–8, 2003). Collective Degradation: Slavery and the Construction of Race: Why White People Are Called 'Caucasian'? (PDF). Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Gilder Lehrman Center International Conference at Yale University. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 20, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2006. Risch N, Burchard E, Ziv E, Tang H (July 2002). "Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease". Genome Biol. 3 (7): comment2007.2001–12. doi:10.1186/gb-2002-3-7-comment2007. PMC 139378. PMID 12184798. Rosenberg NA, Pritchard JK, Weber JL, et al. (December 2002). "Genetic structure of human populations". Science. 298 (5602): 2381–85. Bibcode:2002Sci...298.2381R. doi:10.1126/science.1078311. PMID 12493913. S2CID 8127224. Rosenberg NA, Mahajan S, Ramachandran S, Zhao C, Pritchard JK, Feldman MW (December 2005). "Clines, Clusters, and the Effect of Study Design on the Inference of Human Population Structure". PLOS Genet. 1 (6): e70. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0010070. PMC 1310579. PMID 16355252. Templeton, Alan R. (September 1998). "Human races: A genetic and evolutionary perspective". American Anthropologist. 100 (3): 632–50. Bibcode:1998AAnth.100..632T. doi:10.1525/aa.1998.100.3.632. JSTOR 682042.